Cross-national Differences in the Expansion of Science, 1970-1990

Why has science expanded more in some nations rather than others? The few studies addressing this issue have attributed variation in science to differences in economic development and religion. This article discusses additional explanations, including the impact of domestic political structure, colonialism, and world-system dependency. Also, developing a neo-institutional line of research, I argue that scientific institutions spread to non-Western nations via international organizations (e.g., the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization), which encouraged the widespread adoption of taken-for-granted governmental policies. Cross-sectional and panel regression models of national science infrastructure in the contemporary period are used to evaluate theories. Results show that domestic economic development is associated with the expansion of science, consistent with previous research. Results also find that science expands faster in nations linked to international organizations of the "world polity", consistent with neo-institutional theory. Finally, Protestantism and a history of British and French colonialism appear to have had an impact in the past but do not explain growth of science from 1970 to 1990. Other factors have little effect on the expansion of science.